Certain authors have drawn attention to the fact that competition between businesses has taken the form of competition for the power over regulation and the imposition of a particular style of production. Dominant businesses can thus create barriers to those entering the market, which can either be cultural or legal. The strategies employed essentially consist of establishing norms of production which prevent competitors from entering the market in such a way that competition. Using the French wine industry as a case study, the aim of this work is to investigate how this form of market control, can be brought into question. Given that it is usually technological innovation which is responsible for the transformation of the market forces involved with industrially produced products, the wine market is very interesting to study as such innovation is often excluded through the institutionalisation of scarcity.